The Birdhouse

Between the house and the vegetable garden was the old farmer's wife's flower garden.
There was a  long winding path between two rows of beds.

Beyond that was a long straight row with roses, interspaces with tulips

 and some easter lilies.

 

Each spring the old farmer's wife would spend several days preparing

the flower garden for the coming summer.

The edges of the beds were dug out to make clean edges, weeds were pulled,

clumps of flowers separated if necessary.

There were irises, lilies of the valley, mums, zinnias, poppies, and a clump of chives.

Each easter we had a new easter lily and it was planted along the row of roses

 to come up each year thereafter.

 

Remember the story about insect collecting a few weeks back?

In this story the butterfly net comes into play in a bit different a fashion.

About midway in the flower garden was a mound covered with sweet peas

 and a bird house on a pole in the middle of it.

 

Each year it was inhabited by a little wren who raised her family there.

A cousin and the old farmers daughter, ahem, wanted to catch the wren.

One of us would hold the net in front of the birdhouse and the other would SMACK the backside and out would shoot the bird! Right into the net.

We would reach in and pull her out. 

My cousin remembers we put it in a bird cage on the porch by the kitchen door. 

The bird flew out an opening in the cage that was designed to hold the food dish. 

My older brother and older cousin were playing catch in the front yard

and remarked on the terrified bird that went streaking past them like a bat out of hell.  

Since the birdcage was a failure we repeated the catch and release scenario many times and the bird always shot out into the net on cue. It seemed like great fun at the time.
Until the old farmer's wife caught us.... Uh OH!




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Picking up the cow

What is a farm without livestock?

The Old Farmer raised pigs and a heifer every few years-for the freezer!

We did not need all the pigs so there was some income involved there.

 

 

One year when we got the new heifer calf the old farmer propounded 

on the theory that if he picked it up everyday as it grew, 

his strength would grow proportionally.

We went down to the pen every day the first week and observed the calf lift.
Then the next week... and again...

fortunately for The Old Farmer we had short attention spans.
I think that lasted a few weeks and faded into history....

 

 I mentioned earlier the freezer, this was a huge double wide 

in the back room of the farmhouse. It was well stocked.

One year we had a big family dinner.
We were all sitting around the kitchen exchanging greetings
and the old farmer; who was proud of providing for his family;
told the cousins how the pork roast cooking in the oven;
and smelling delicious by the  way; used to be down running around
behind the barns. This was too much information for one young cousin,
I don't know if he has eaten pork to this day!

 

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What is a farm without a garden

Of course the old farmer raised acres of corn for the livestock,

and wheat as a cash crop, and with the related straw stashed in the barn.
But also there was a large vegetable garden near the house.

This was what is now called a survival garden.

There was a lot of fresh food in the summer snd lots of canning for the winter.

 

 

The garden was laid out with the smaller items nearer the house,

this was the south side of the garden. Radishes, swiss chard, onions, kohlrabi,

cabbages, green beans, cantaloupe, cucumbers  squashes, several rows of tomatoes,

and the corn on the north side. The reasoning for this is that the tall crops

would not  shade the rest of the garden.

 

 

Kohlrabi is an interesting vegetable. It is quite odd looking when growing,

this above ground bulb on a stem with a tuft of leaves sprouting out of the top.

I think it is starting to become mainstream now and if you haven't tried it do.
It is crisp and refreshing uncooked. Also very good cooked and buttered or in a roux.
We would pick it and eat it fresh in the garden.
Ditto the sun warmed tomatoes.

 

So guess whose job it was to hoe hoe hoe. The theory laid out for us was that if we each hoed one row a day, then back to the beginning to start over again so we could keep ahead of the weeds, this rarely happened, the weeds were winning the war in short order!

As we hoed, occasionally we might miss a weed and hit a bean plant or cuke or tomato.
We would look guiltily around hoping no one saw this indiscretion.

 

 

 

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The Swimming Pool and The Pond

The Old Farmer loved his children and the joys of childhood.

One year he got a scoop attachment for the old John Deere
and decided to dig a swimming pool for us.

He dug a nice long rectangle hole about 3  feet deep across the driveway from the house. Lined it with old shingles and waited for the rains!

Well it only got a few inches of water in it. To solve that problem he ran a line over to the hole from a downspout on the house.

Ha! Next rain it started to fill up and pretty soon we had a pool.

Next thing we see is a  mouse who fell into the water and couldn't climb out.

I was quite young at the time, the youngest in the family. Everyone surrounded
the pool so that wherever he swam one of us would be close enough to "rescue" him.

Of course he swam right to me and everyone is yelling "catch him catch him"!

So I caught him. Or maybe we should say he caught me! Right on the end of my

finger and he held on for dear life. I joined in the hollering and was jumping up
and down, trying to shake him off with little success.
Well I guess you could say he was rescued and at my expense!

Well after the rains came the mosquitoes and the pool was short lived.
Filled back in and soon more grass to mow.

 

A year or two later the township was widening our little one lane country road
and needed fill dirt. They came to the Old Farmer and asked if they
could dig a hole out between our fields and with luck a spring
would fill it up and a pond we would have!

It turned out to have several springs and filled in short order. Not being
stagnant there was no major mosquito issue, we spent the summer
swimming and playing and sharing the water with crawdads

and muskrats and tadpoles and frogs. The crawdads would craw over our toes,
we would catch the frogs and let them go (catch and release :  )
and I am glad to say I never came face to face with a muskrat.




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